HOUSTON (AP) — Pro Bowl linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair will remain with the Houston Texans through the 2029 season after signing a three-year extension this week.
The Texans didn’t release terms of the deal when they announced it Friday, but it is reportedly worth $54 million.
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Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair with his mother, Naadhirah Lennon, center, and Texan's owner Cal McNair, his wife, Hannah and their son, Calhoun McNair, far right, pose during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair poses with his mother Naadhirah Lennon during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair talks about his contract extension during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair with his mother, Naadhirah Lennon, center, and Texan's owner Cal McNair, his wife, Hannah and their son, Calhoun McNair, far right, pose during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair talks about his contract extension during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
“Truthfully, I just wanted to be authentically myself and I always felt like if I got the opportunity to be at a place and show everybody who I was, then things would go well for the team and myself,” he said. “I’m grateful for that.”
His deal comes on the heels of defensive end Will Anderson signing a three-year, $150 million contract extension with the Texans that makes him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history
Al-Shaair has spent the last two seasons with the Texans, appearing in 27 games with 173 tackles, eight tackles for losses, two sacks, 13 passes defensed, two interceptions and three forced fumbles.
Last season, he was selected for his first Pro Bowl after making 16 starts for a defense that allowed the fewest yards in the NFL (277.2 per game) and averaged the second-fewest points allowed (17.4) in the regular season.
Al-Shaair joined the Texans after spending the 2023 season with the Titans. He was an undrafted free agent who spent his first four seasons in San Francisco, where he appeared in 56 games and had 199 tackles and 11 tackles for losses.
Al-Shaair was honored for his off-field work last season when he was named Houston’s Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award recipient. He supports numerous charities that support homeless youth after experiencing homelessness growing up after his family’s home was destroyed in a fire.
Al-Shaair said Friday that his mother didn’t want him to play football as a child because she didn’t want him to get hurt. He begged her and made a promise that he has since fulfilled.
“We were staying in a motel at the time, (and I said) ‘I promise you, if you let me play football I’m going to make it to the NFL, I’ll take care of our family one day,’” he said. “I had no clue if I was ever actually going to be able to do it or not. I never saw it done. ... So, to sit here years and years later, to be actually living that out, is absolutely amazing.”
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Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair poses with his mother Naadhirah Lennon during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair talks about his contract extension during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair with his mother, Naadhirah Lennon, center, and Texan's owner Cal McNair, his wife, Hannah and their son, Calhoun McNair, far right, pose during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Houston Texans' Azeez Al-Shaair talks about his contract extension during a press conference at the NFL football team's facility, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
PARIS (AP) — Activists worldwide held May Day rallies and street protests on Friday, calling for peace, higher wages and better working conditions as many workers grapple with rising energy costs and shrinking purchasing power tied to the Iran war.
May 1 is a public holiday in many countries to mark International Workers’ Day, or Labor Day, when workers’ unions traditionally rally around wages, pensions, inequality and broader political issues. Demonstrations were held across Asia — from South Korea to Australia and Indonesia — to many European capitals. In the United States, activists opposing President Donald Trump’s policies also held marches and boycotts.
“Working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” the European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 93 trade union organizations in 41 European countries, said. “Today’s rallies show working people will not stand by and see their jobs and living standards destroyed.”
What to know about May Day:
Rising living costs linked to the conflict in the Middle East was as a key theme in Friday’s rallies.
On a main avenue in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, taxi drivers honked their horns and bus drivers parked their vehicles to protest rising fuel costs.
“All my expenses have gone up, but my wages haven’t budged,” Akherraz Lhachimi of the Moroccan Labor Union said.
Several rallies were staged in South Africa, where the head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zingiswa Losi, said workers were “suffocating” under rising costs of food, electricity, transportation and healthcare.
Turkish authorities in Istanbul detained hundreds of demonstrators for attempting to march in areas declared off-limits on security grounds, most notably central Taksim Square, the epicenter of 2013 protests. May Day rallies in Turkey are frequently marred by clashes with authorities.
A demonstration in Santiago, Chile, ended with vandalism and clashes between protesters and police, who used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Several thousand people gathered across Portugal as unions rallied together to protest proposed changes to labor laws that include making worker dismissals easier and reducing miscarriage bereavement leave.
“It’s the only voice we have,” public sector worker Paulo Domingues said of the protests.
May Day carries special meaning this year in France, after a heated debate about whether employees should be allowed to work on the country’s most protected public holiday — the only day when most employees have a mandatory paid day off.
Tens of thousands of people joined marches across the country, including in Paris, where brief scuffles with police broke out.
Almost all businesses, shops and malls were closed, and only essential sectors such as hospitals, transport and hotels were exempt.
A recent parliamentary proposal to expand work on the day prompted major outcry from unions and left-wing politicians.
Faced with the dispute, the government this week introduced a bill that would allow bakeries and florists to open. It is customary in France to give lily of the valley flowers on May Day as a symbol of good luck.
“May 1 is not just any day,” Small and Medium-sized Businesses Minister Serge Papin said. “It symbolizes social gains stemming from a century of building social rules that have led to the labor code we know in France.”
In the U.S., where May Day is not a federal holiday, May Day Strong, a coalition of activist groups and labor unions, urged people to protest under the banner of “workers over billionaires” and called for an economic blackout through “no school, no work, no shopping.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani addressed a largely supportive crowd at a Manhattan rally organized by unions and immigrant advocates. He reiterated his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy and “protect our neighbors from the cruelty of ICE,” or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At a protest outside the New York Stock Exchange, multiple people were arrested, according to police, who did not have an exact count or information on charges. Video showed some protesters tried to chain themselves to a railing. One struggled with officers.
Across the U.S., many protesters voiced opposition to Trump’s policies, including his immigration crackdown.
“We’re seeing tons and tons of attacks on working people and on oppressed communities from the Trump administration, both at home and abroad,” said Kathryn Stender, an activist with the Party for Socialism and Liberation who was among thousands at a rally in a Chicago park.
The atmosphere there was festive, with Native American dancers, mariachi bands and monarch butterfly signs, which have become a symbol of the immigrant rights movement.
While labor and immigrant rights are historically intertwined, the focus of May Day rallies in the U.S. shifted to immigration in 2006. That’s when roughly 1 million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would have made living in the U.S. without legal permission a felony.
May Day, or International Workers’ Day, traces back more than a century to a pivotal period in U.S. labor history.
In the 1880s, unions pushed for an eight-hour workday. A Chicago rally in May 1886 turned deadly when a bomb exploded and police responded with gunfire. Several labor activists — most of them immigrants — were convicted of conspiracy and other charges; four were executed.
Unions later designated May 1 to honor workers. A monument in Chicago’s Haymarket Square commemorates them with the inscription: “Dedicated to all workers of the world.”
Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
Demonstrators march during a May Day rally in New York, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
People march during a May Day rally in Chicago, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
People hold hands at Union park for a May Day rally in Chicago, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Turkish, right, and Greek Cypriots gathering s they marking May Day inside the U.N. buffer zone at Ledra Palace hotel in the divided capital of Nicosia, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
People gather before a May Day rally in Chicago, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
An effigy of U.S. President Donald Trump burns during an International Workers' Day march marking May Day in Panama City, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Members of trade unions take part in a May Day rally in Tsakane, east of Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Protesters march during the May Day demonstration in Rennes, western France, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo)
A man holds a picture or former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wearing a prison uniform during a May Day rally demanding greater labor rights in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Protesters march during the May Day demonstration in Paris, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
An union member is detained by a Turkish police officer as people try to march towards Taksim square in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 1, 2026, during Labor Day celebrations. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions stage a rally on May Day in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions stage a rally on May Day in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Union members scuffle with Turkish police officers as they try to march towards Taksim square in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 1, 2026, during Labor Day celebrations. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Union members carefully step through rain-formed puddles to participate in a May Day rally in the rain Friday, May 1, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People march to mark International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, in Sydney, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
People march to mark International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, in Sydney, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
FILE - Activist and workers raise their clenched fists during a May Day rally in Manila, Philippines, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
Laborers protest during a May Day demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Laborers hold flares during a May Day demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Members of trade unions take part in a rally a day ahead of the International Labor Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, April 30, 2026. The banner in center reading as 'red salute to the martyrs of Chicago and the struggle will continue until economic exploitation is ended' (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
Members of trade unions take part in a rally a day ahead of the International Labor Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
